Amy Gerstler

Manic poems, overflowing with words, too often rushing by and over with no penetration.

I have so many thoughts
zipping around my head and I'm trying to fit
them all into words...

Thanks, "Dearest Creature," that sums it up pretty nicely. I didn't find much to enjoy in the first half of this collection. I see now why your daily prayers are soooo important... ugh, not to mention a pale winter sun/that hung over my house like a sucked/cough lozenge. No thanks.

The second half had some I liked all right. "Untranslatable" slings around old-time sounding cliches to amusing effect (he tried to put the bite on me right there in the speakeasy/for a hundred clams like I would ever have that kind of dough/you can bet your sweet ass I told him where to go). "Mrs. Monster Pens Her Memoirs" about two wounded bodies and souls finding relationship. "Dig", about humanness under profession (That frayed inhalation the microphone picks up,/that amplified fragment of animal gasp//is what gets me: precursor to all creaturely music. and My roaring inner wish/was to dunk his fingers in strong coffee and nibble//them like buttermilk crullers back home. If I'd had/any sense I would have said so in his guttural native tongue.)

1.5 stars for the first half, 3 stars for the second.… (más)

We read The Grudge, A Walk In Victoria's Secret, and I never went to that movie at 12:45 in my Creative Writing class. We got to pick any piece off here or "The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2009" for a critical review. I ended up doing Carrying on like a Crow by Charles Simic because it was probably my favorite poem in this compilation. My other favorites include: The Grudge,Letter to the Past after Long Silence, What's Left, Namaskar, Oh dont, and Grave.

Overall I enjoyed it, and I loved reading some of the pieces contemporary poets were writing.… (más)

Unfortunately, I couldn't really connect with this one. It has some nice lines, like "Is a child an exegesis of parental texts?" in "Childlessness" (24) and "Try, for once in your life, to really / wake up.
Refill with clean, soapy water" in "Penance" (68-69), but there's not a single poem I think I'll remember a week from now. I'm not sure I like Gerstler's voice.

Read the review on my blog rel="nofollow" target="_top">here.… (más)